


You Were Good To Me

by shuhannon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chewy Is Hopper In My Mind, F/M, Growing Up Together, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, POV Alternating, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rey Needs A Hug, Rey's Only Nineteen But Her Mind Is Older
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 20:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuhannon/pseuds/shuhannon
Summary: "But to him, she was always going to be a kid. Always going to be that tag along pseudo sibling without any parents of her own who was always trailing after him, always asking where he was going and what he was doing, always one step behind, lapping at his heels."





	You Were Good To Me

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to peaceblessingspeyton for beta'ing this for me! it's the first time i ever had anyone beta my writing and i can't thank you enough! you reigned in my bad semicolon habit.
> 
> i don't even know where this came from. basically i had the image of ben and rey having a heart to heart on a wooden front deck in the middle of the woods and this is what it turned into.
> 
> hope you enjoy! any/all comments, kudos and feedback is greatly appreciated. <3

  
[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/182242012@N03/48475632752/in/dateposted-public/)

She was an adult. She was old enough to vote, to buy cigarettes and shop at sex stores.

But to him, she was always going to be a kid. Always going to be that tag along pseudo sibling without any parents of her own who was always trailing after him, always asking where he was going and what he was doing, always one step behind, lapping at his heels.

Rey had known Ben Solo her entire life. She had watched him grow and change; watched him morph from moody teenager into a solid, serious young man.

Yet to him, she was always going to be that little girl with dirt on her overalls, whose tongue that always stuck out in defiance (a child's version of a 'fuck you') was blue from the Slurpees she drank.

It didn’t matter that she was nineteen. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen Ben in two years. It didn’t matter that she was in college now, that she was working full time. That her stick figure had given away to curves and okay maybe she didn’t have much in the breast department but they were still  _ there. _

It didn’t matter that she had seen more, had been exposed and subjected to more serious, ‘grown up’ things than most people twice her age.

It didn’t matter that she knew Ben better than he knew himself.

“You still live off of twizzlers and blue Slurpees?” He asked, eyebrows slightly raised and a cigarette poised between his fingers, hovering in the air barely a whisper in front of his plush lips.

Rey hated cigarettes. She hated the smell of them. Hated the way the smoke would cling to you, to your hair and your clothes.

But for Ben she would stand here. Fuck, she would smoke one just to show him up, to prove to him that she wasn’t some dumb little kid anymore.

So she did just that. A wicked grin on her lips and a mischievous glint in her eyes. He blinked, taking a moment to register that the cigarette was gone and was now being rolled and toyed with between her own nimble fingers with her other arm crossed over the flat plane of her stomach.

“I do,” She finally answered him, raising the cigarette to her lips and taking a long, slow drag. “Though I’ve realized that Slurpees taste much better with vodka in them.”

At that he raised an eyebrow, leaning forward to snatch the cigarette back from her. He gave a small shake of his head, as if he was trying to bump something from the front of his mind. It made his hair fall forward. It was longer; the dark locks covering his too big ears and curling around the base of his neck. It was almost at his shoulders. Almost the same length as her own brown hair, which hung limp and straight. She was envious of his layers; of the way his hair was so thick and voluptuous.

Her fingers itched to run themselves through his strands and play with it. To toy with the ends, rolling them between her fingers, to feel how soft it was. To breathe in his scent, even if it did smell like his terrible nicotine habit.

“You’re not old enough to drink.” Ben was teasing her. Nonetheless, she shifted her weight bouncing from one foot to the other in annoyance. She hated when he brought up her age. Hated when she was reminded once more about the ten years that spanned between them.

“I’m British. You know the legal age to drink is eighteen over there, right?” She quipped back. 

Suddenly Rey darted forward, moving to steal his cigarette once more, but this time he was in on her game. Ben held it high over her head, his lips curling into a small smile as Rey began to reach; rose up onto the tips of her toes, stretching her body against his, trying to claim the cigarette once more.

Rey didn't even want to smoke it. Had no desire to take another puff. She just didn't want him to have it, she told herself but that was just an excuse. What she wanted was a way to get close to him.

Her reasoning was if he didn’t have it, then there was nothing else to focus on. Then there was nothing else to do.

He would be forced to address the elephant in the room.

* * *

Sometimes Rey wondered if she had been born into this world loving Ben Solo.

She knew that it was stupid.That was a fanciful way of thinking. Because she did not know Ben Solo when she was born. She didn’t meet him until she was seven; she was a wisp of a kid, half of her front teeth missing and the other looking too large and out of place in her small mouth.

Her knees had been knobbly and scabbed, her clothes dirty. Her hair unwashed and her skin splattered with grass stains and mud.

A man named Chewy had found her fighting in the park with bigger kids. She was holding a stick that was twice as big as she was.Rey couldn’t even remember where she found it. But she was using it, swinging it around and smacking kids who were twice her size, scowling and growling and acting more animal than human.

Only then would they would run and scream. Only then they would leave her alone.

Which was when Chewy showed up, an off duty cop with a bushy beard and moustache hiding half of his face.

The kids ran off at the sight of him.

When he asked where her parents were, Rey could do nothing but shrug. He tried again, asking her her name.

“Rey.”

“Rey what?”

Another shrug.

So he took her home feeding her and giving her something clean to wear. He let her watch some tv.

It was only once she was clean and her belly was fed that he got Leia on the phone. Leia would know what to do. Leia was a lawyer, a damn good one who dealt with complicated legal shit every day. She would have the answers. She always did.

After days of paperwork, of trying to locate the parents of a girl who didn’t even know her last name, there was nothing but dead ends. Nothing but overturned rocks with nothing underneath. 

“She needs to go into the system,” Leia pleaded with her old friend, her voice low. “The foster system is her best bet, and ideally she’ll ended up adopted.”

“You know what happens to kids in the system, Leia. She’ll be lucky to age out without being unscathed. At least not more than she is now.”

So Rey stayed with Chewy. He pulled some strings, got a birth certificate and a social security card through Leia’s husband Han. It wasn’t all entirely above the law, but then again they lived in the middle of Endor County. It wasn’t like they were a sparkling metropolis attracting big brother’s eye.

Rey Johnson was born. Rey was given a last name, she was given a birthdate, an identity.

So it was because she was now Rey Johnson, because Chewy was now her dad, and Leia and Han were his best friends that Rey was given Ben.

The moment she laid her eyes upon him, she was a goner. Rey was seven, but even she knew that there was something special about the moody teenager who sat slumped down on the couch. The one who wore all black and kept tugging his hair, trying to hide his ears.

His features were too large for his long face, sort of like Mr. Potato Head she mused. His mouth was extra wide, and his nose was really strong, like the kind you saw made from marble.

“You look like Mr. Potato Head and Mount Rushmore had a baby.”

The words were blurted out before Rey could even think, could even process what she was saying. She had fallen asleep on the couch last night. Chewy had left the history channel on, a program about different national parks.

Ben had blinked back at her; he just stared.

Rey wasn’t sure if he was going to yell or laugh. If she would be in trouble or not because she was still testing the waters, still pushing the boundaries with all these new pseudo parents in her life.

“She’s not wrong, kid.” Han had appeared in the doorway, a can of cheap beer in hand. He was teasing his son, but Rey quickly realized it was the wrong move; the wrong thing to say. Ben scowled as he scrambled up from the couch. “I’m outta here.” She heard him mumble as he roughly pushed past his father and walked out the back door.

“Teenagers.” Han had sighed the single word with a shake of his head. As if Rey could relate. As if Rey understood. 

* * *

“Why’d you come back?” 

Ben shrugged. He was good at that. He was good at not committing to an answer, at giving vague gestures instead of concrete words. Ben was like his dad that way but he would never admit it. He would never admit that he had too much of his father in him. Even when it was plain as day. Even when Rey saw it in every smirk of his lips or twinkle in his eye.

“Admit it,” She was still standing close to him; standing barely a breath apart. They were on the back porch of his parent’s house. The lake was behind them. Rey could hear the water, could hear the subtle waves lapping against the pebbly beaches that surrounded it. 

“Admit what?” Rey tilted her chin up, her lips spreading slowly into a cocky smile. She watched as his gaze flittered over her face, as it dropped from her hazel eyes to her slightly parted lips. His voice was the same, the same deep, low baritone that caused a shiver to run down Rey’s spine. She could listen to him speak endlessly, could listen to him read nothing but the goddamn phone book for days on end, and it would still make her weak in the knees. Would still make her panties feel damp.

“You missed me.” She was so close to him, was standing in front of him, ready to lay it all out on the table, to bare her soul.

“Rey-”

She was toying with fire. Was tip toeing the line, edging closer and closer past the point of no return. But if not now, then when? She was nineteen. She had been in love with him since she was seven. She had done her waiting, had patiently stood as she watched him make out with Bazine Netal in the woods that stretched between his house and hers. She had waited to cry into her pillow when he came home from college, a girlfriend named Jess in tow.

Rey had been waiting for twelve years. Had been waiting for the past two for him to come back, to return her phone calls or letters. To show any sign that she was still a part of his life.

If it wasn’t now… if it wasn’t now then when? After the weekend, he would be gone. Ben would be back in the city, working his terrible job for his terrible boss and Rey.. and Rey would be left behind. Again. She didn’t want to be left behind anymore.

She would rather have her heart broken then be abandoned again.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Ben.”  _ Look at me,  _ she was pleading.  _ See _ me. Acknowledge me. Say you’re going to choose me.

“You’re nineteen-” His voice cracked. He took a step back but Rey heard the soft thud, felt his body press against the wooden railing of the deck. 

“Ben.” Her voice was firm as she worried her bottom lip, trying to keep the quiver from her voice; trying to keep it together. “Don’t do this. Don’t play stupid.”

He had been here too. He had gone on the same journey as her. Their paths might have been different but they still ran parallel. They were still two different sides to the same coin.

* * *

Rey had never felt this drunk before. She had drank before, of course. Had gone to parties with her friends. Senior year was starting; her final year of high school. One more year. Nine more months until she was eighteen. Until she was an adult and… and…

“You wasted, Johnson?”

It would be a lie to say that Rey did not know he was home. That she was clueless to the fact that he was visiting for the weekend, that he was being a good son, giving up his time to spend time with his mother on her birthday.

That she hadn’t been forced out of her house by Finn and Rose, dragged every step of the way to the party down the street.

“End of summer bonfire.” Was her answer. It was Bright Tree High tradition, after all. The upperclassmen always got together the weekend before school started, to drink on the beach.

Her face felt flush. She wore nothing but her bathing suit and a pair of cut offs. It was dark out, the only light coming from the house behind Ben. He was probably hiding out here. Avoiding his parents. Dodging his mom, even on her birthday.

“Why’re you out here?” Her speech was slurred as she stumbled in the dark. He was seated on the front porch steps, and Rey sloppily threw herself down beside him, giggling even though there wasn’t anything funny. She was leaning; was resting her body against his, her head lying down on his shoulder. 

If she had been sober, she would have noticed the way Ben went rigid; the way his entire body froze because she was being so open, so careless with her touch.

“You should be inside.” Rey carried on, one word bleeding into the next. “Cause y’know Leia really misses you. And Han misses you. And Chewy misses you, and y’know I really miss you. Cause you’re so nice Ben. So tall.”

“I miss you too, kid.” Ben murmured back, his voice soft. And for a moment, just a moment Rey swore she saw him relax. It felt good; it felt natural, nice to be sitting here, leaning against Ben, breathing in the familiar scent of him. The one that was spicy,like lime and bergamot and apple.

It could have been just that; it could have just been a nice moment shared between two family friends. A moment that Rey could hold onto,could enjoy and reminisce about every once in a while, when the drought began. When Ben would go back to the city and Rey wouldn’t know when she would see him again.

Instead she had to open her mouth. Instead she had to let her drunken brain take lead. “No-no-no-no.” Lifting her head off of his shoulder, Rey turned to look at him. “I miss you.  _ Really  _ miss you.” 

Except Ben wasn’t getting it. His brow was furrowed, his expression puzzled. “I know, Rey. I miss you too-”

“ _ No _ .”

The word was firmer than she meant, louder too. She was leaning, losing her balance and falling forward. As hard as her mind was screaming at her; yelling that this wasn’t good. That she needed to stop, needed to not take it too far. Except she couldn’t stop. She was a car without breaks, her gear shift jerked into drive. Because he didn’t understand. He didn’t get it, so maybe if she showed him… maybe if she showed him how she felt, how she always felt.

Maybe it was the fact that she was drunk. Maybe she was misinterpreting the situation. Maybe she was just seeing what she wanted, through her beer goggles.

But as she leaned forward; as she felt her eyes glued to his lips, his gorgeous, wide set mouth that for once weren’t pressed into a tight line. That for once looked open and inviting. She felt his body beginning to lean; felt him coming towards her.

Ben stood abruptly. He untangled his limbs with alarming speed. Or maybe it just felt fast, because the world around her was moving so slow. She felt as if she was wading through molasses, the sticky sweet liquid too thick and hindering her actions.

She felt cold without him. She felt alone.

He said nothing. He gaped at her, opening his mouth before shutting it in rapid succession. And then he was gone, the slam of the screen door sounding too loud, as it echoed throughout the quiet night. A clear punctuation to his actions which very much spoke louder than words.

The next morning Rey woke up with a pounding headache, a dry mouth and a broken heart.

* * *

“Look kid, if I gave you the wrong-”

“Stop it.  _ Stop _ calling me kid. I’m not a kid anymore” The words exploded from her. Her voice was loud and was shaking but was still strong. Rey always had been strong.

They were still standing close still. His cigarette had been dropped,extinguished on the damp, moss tinged wood of the deck railing beside him. He was staring at her,looking at her, eyes wide and face blank.

He was looking at her that way because she was right. Ben knew that, knew that she hadn’t been a child anymore in quite some time. But old habits die hard and it was easy. It was easier to not move forward, to not let their relationship change and grow. 

“Rey-” She was shaking her head now, raising her hands up beside her head, her fingers curled into fists. As she stepped back, as she tried to put space between them, Ben was moving forward. He didn’t want to cross the line. He wasn’t ready to cross that line but he didn’t want to lose her either. He didn’t want her to be the one to pull away.

“I’m not an idiot.” She spat her words with venom. “I see you. I’ve always seen you. I saw the way you looked at my legs in this stupid dress. I saw you staring at me, right before you slipped outside. And I know, Ben. I know I was being drunk and reckless. I know I was seventeen and shit faced out of my mind, but I know you were leaning forward. I know you wanted it as much as I did.”

Nothing she said was a lie. Ben couldn’t counter any of it. Couldn’t argue against a single statement she had made. 

She was right,he had noticed she was getting older. He had noticed the way her long legs had begun to fill out, still sprinkled with freckles but also a layer of muscle laid underneath her tan flesh. He noticed the way she wore makeup now. Not a lot. She didn’t need any. But eyeliner; mascara around her eyes and he had watched her apply the tube of chapstick over her lips.

She was nineteen. She was in the eyes of the law, an adult. A grown woman. Sound of mind and perfectly capable of making her own choices.

Then again Rey always had been capable. Had always done what she wanted. The only reason she had even gone with Chewy all those years ago, after he found her in the park was because she wanted to. She had been alone. She was starving. And yet.. And yet Ben knew she wouldn’t have gone with Chewy unless she wanted to.

Rey always knew what she wanted.

In a way, Ben did too.

That was the problem.

Because when he noticed her, fuck, he noticed everything about her. But she was so young; she had her whole life stretched out before her. 

Ben couldn’t lose her.

He couldn’t take the risk; couldn’t take the leap of faith with his fingers crossed in the hope that everything would be alright.

Everything he touched became broken, became cracked and fractured beneath the surface. Ben had lost friends. He had lost his family, had severed ties with his uncle and his father and even his mother, his mother who he had always loved the most, was barely hanging on by a thin string of thread.

Rey couldn’t be added to the list. Couldn’t be another way that Ben had fucked up, had ruined a perfectly good thing.

She was always good to him. She  _ was  _ good for him.

“Don’t do this,” He pleaded, his voice cracking as he took yet another step towards her. He wanted to reach out, wanted to brush his fingers against her skin. He wanted to hold her, wanted to wrap his arms around her, to pull her body flush against his and never let go.

But he couldn’t. His arms remained limp at his sides, the tips of his fingers twitching before they curled up towards his palm.

“I  _ love  _ you.”

The air was knocked from his lungs. His breath remained stuck in his throat. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He could do nothing but stare at her. Watch as she began to shatter,as she began to break. Because Ben couldn’t say it back. Not now. Maybe not ever. Not when she deserved more.Not when she deserved better. Deserved everything that he could never offer her, no matter how old she was.

So he stood there, completely immobile and unable to hide the sadness behind his eyes. He watched the tears building up in the corners of her beautiful hazel eyes, watched as they began to fall in fat drops down her cheeks. She tried to keep it together; to hold it all in. Ben could tell by the way her arms curled around her stomach, by the way she tried to swallow the sob that was bubbling up from her throat.

The worst part, the final nail in the coffin was the way Ben stepped forward. The way Ben took her into his arms, allowed himself to rest his chin on her hair and breath in her scent. The way he held her as she cried, held her as he broke her heart. The way he brushed his lips across the top of her head, all while whispering, “I know, kid. I know.”

What he really meant, what he really was saying between the lines, the words that existed only in the silences and pauses was ‘maybe someday.’

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> feel free to follow me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/shuhannon)


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